By 1998, the album had been certified gold, making it a genuine success.īut the success put the band at odds, here they were a really good hard rock band best known for a soft, mushy ballad. The song blew up in the dying days of heavy metal, peaking at number 12 on the singles chart and propelling the album to the lower rungs of the Billboard 100. But there were still some decent tracks like "Hostile Youth," "God of 42nd Street" and "Peppermint Tribe" but the real smash of the album was the straight ballad "Love is on the Way," which was released as the album's second single.
When The Lizard was released in 1992, it clocked in with an overwhelming sixteen tracks, a few like "My Dog" and "Sleep" were throwaways that had no place on the disc even though "Sleep" is a very brief, pretty instrumental. Tensions had started cropping up in the band's working relationships but they persevered and set about to make a very different record. Thinking of himself as some kind of Svengali, guitarist Jason Bieler put himself in the producer's chair and the band moved to Sweden to make the second disc. It quickly grew into one of my favorite records and is still one I rank very high all these years later.īuoyed by the critical success of the record, Atlantic and 3rd Stone budgeted a second album to be made right away. This was the tape I discovered in a Wal-Mart discount cassette bin in the mid '90's.
#Saigon kick love is on the way gab how to
But the schizophrenic nature of the album made it hard to promote no one really knew how to market something so different and as a result, the record sold pitifully few copies. There were quirky numbers like "Suzy," "I.C.U." and "My Life," which features a kazoo breakdown and rockers like "What You Say," "What Do You Do" and "Month of Sundays." But there were also some great ballads like the aforementioned "Coming Home" and "Come Take Me Now," two of the best songs the band ever produced. When the first record was released in the spring of 1991, most people didn't know what to make of the album for it was quite different than a normal metal record. Going into the studio with producer Michael Wagener, best known for producing White Lion and Dokken, the band were ready to get their vision onto record. At the time, they were signed to an upstart subsidiary, 3rd Stone, that was being bankrolled by actor Michael Douglas. In the world of heavy metal, hair bands ruled the airwaves at the time and though the band didn't quite fit with the other bands like Bulletboys, Tuff or Trixter, they found themselves lumped in with the scene, particularly upon signing with Atlantic Records in 1990. A combination of Jane's Addiction eclecticism mixed with what was popular in the industry at the time such as early grunge and full-on hair metal a la Winger and Warrant, the band served as their own catalyst to a very nasty breakup and quick decline and a very interesting story.Ĭoming together in Florida in the late '80's by frontman Matt Kramer, guitarist/songwriter/vocalist Jason Bieler, bassist Tom DeFile and drummer Phil Varone, the band started playing the local club scene and began building quite a buzz. One minute they were really heavy, the next minute doing a very soft ballad and weaving everything together in one very tasty package.
Saigon Kick was always a hard band to categorize and that's just the way they liked it. It wasn't the greatest time but that song helped make everything better. It was all I wanted to do: go back home and that song, that album, that band, will always remind me of that moment. Getting into the car with my birth father, I can remember listening to the album in its entirety and then playing "Coming Home," seemingly on a never ending loop all throughout the trip.
The tape was the self-titled debut by Saigon Kick, a band lumped into the hair metal genre, best known for their 1992 ballad "Love is On the Way." This first record had a song on it entitled "Coming Home"- it was never released as a single but it was a song that quickly spoke to me. I had just bought a cassette tape in the 99 cent bin at Wal-Mart that I was excited to listen to. It was January 1996, I was 9 and it was the weekend to go visit. But that's what the courts wanted- regular visitations. It wasn't something I particularly enjoyed as he and I are two completely different people, always have been, always will be. When I was a child, I would have to go visit my birth father every other weekend.